Australian Law Reform Commission Has Only Received 80 Submissions

The closing date Submissions to the Issues Paper for the Australian Law Reform Commission is July 15 yet, despite being open since the middle of May, there are currently only 80 completed submissions. Time is running out for us to have our say on important issues surrounding classification in this country.

It's understandable to an extent - it seems like every other week there's a new survey to fill out, or a new submissions process, but considering that 80% of the submissions made so far are lobbying for an increased amount of censorship and government intervention, it's important for us to help provide a more balanced view.

Let's get motivated! These are important issues, and paramount to the way classification will be rebuilt post the Australian Law Reform Commission's report early next year.

There was no "supermajority of people". The majority of people *who responded* were in favour, but that was always going to happen because it was an online submission, which is a space dominated by those who want it.

If you seriously think that thing was representative of most Australians, you're deluding yourself.

I want R18+ as much as anyone else, but I'm not going to pretend that particular survey meant anything.

There's been countless surveys, submissions, and other such things in support of an R18 rating and despite that, every meeting of the Attorney Generals ends up with a resulting "Yeah we're not sure yet, it needs more consideration".

Key point was that classification should be there to inform, not to censor and that restricting content should only be done if it is demonstrably harmful or illegal. Probably should have been clearer to say illegal to produce, not depicting illegal actions (otherwise no more Breaking Bad and that would make me sad).

It's obvious no one in power gives a crap or is too terrified about releasing a single finger of their iron-fisted rule.
So, I'm sorry, but I stopped caring about the classification issue a long time ago; about the same time I discovered importing strangely.

I'm reading a few of these responses, and the number of people who want R18+ and X18+ content prohibited entirely in Australia (including via the internet) is kind of surprising.
Do I sense the ACL's hand in this or are that many people independently legitimately concerned about pornography demeaning women?

I think that, given that several of the respondents have sections that match each other, word for word, that there is some sort of organization behind some of the 'more censorship for the children and feeble womens' submissions. Hopefully the ALRC will note that.

I like the people who use broad terms like "offensive" as a reason to censor something.

I'm offended by crucifixes. They are a medieval torture device that caused unimaginable suffering and the constant worship of said device disgusts me. Therefore, all images, depictions or uses of crucifixes should be banned.

Also, this is the one thing that seems to be in a lot of responses (regarding internet classification):

"All material that would be classified RC,X18+ or R18+should be prohibited to the general user.
Opt in access to R18+ could only be provided subject to strict age verification procedures including
registration of all users to prevent the material being then duplicated and passed on to other non
verified users."

Yeah, I tried to append that observation earlier but on on an American server at work so Kotaku.com.au loads really badly. Practically form letter remarks about "abolishing R18+ content from the internet" unless people opt in for R18+ only, and specifically noting that NO R18+ rating should be added for videogames. Interesting...

"considering that 80% of the submissions made so far are lobbying for an increased amount of censorship and government intervention"

Really? Where did you see these? I just scanned through a majority of the submissions and they all seem to be in favour of changing/adjusting the classification system to make it clearer and introduce a common set of classifications across all media types (including R18+ for video games).

Maybe they'd have got more responses if it didn't keep giving "Validation Error" when I try to go to the second page, but it doesn't actually tell me what's invalid about my submission. I've filled in all the boxes, both mandatory and optional ones, but apparently that's not good enough.

That was hard... "If the current Commonwealth, state and territory cooperative scheme for classification should be replaced, what legislative scheme should be introduced?"... does anyone know any legislative schemes?

Also I've checked out a few of the other public responses and it's really revealing. I know my grammar skills are terrible but seriously, read some of the pro-censorship responses! It may be bad form to attack spelling and grammar, but if those are the people who are against us then we've got nothing to worry about.